By Hamid Yazdan Panah
Iran is making headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. This past month saw a series of important stories come out with respect both internal and international issues in Iran. The stories are consistent with two themes that many Iranians have maintained over the last year; that the nuclear deal with Iran has not changed the nature of the regime, nor has it benefitted the people of Iran with regard to human rights.
Iran Focus
London, 12 Jun – On Wednesday 8 June, Al-Arabiya News reported that a video has been published on social networks showing the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq.
One of the soldiers, that seem to hold a cell phone in his hand, turned the front camera of the cell phone to his side and started capturing videos of army forces behind him.
Iran Focus
Tehran, 9 Jun – Prison officials in Minab Prison in the province of Hormozgan, southern Iran, are trying to torment political prisoner, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, to death by intensifying torture and pressure on him, according to reports from inside Iran.
Iran Focus
Tehran, 11 Jun – On the morning of Wednesday, a group of retired teachers and educators carrying placards staged a demonstration outside Iran’s Administrative Justice Court in Sattari Highway – Mokhberi Boulevard – in Tehran to protest against the Hassan Rouhani government’s neglect of their low salaries and disregard for their livelihoods, according to local reports.
London, 9 Jun – Iran’s state-run Tasnim News Agency acknowledged on Monday, 6 June, that the weather in Isfahan, central Iran, is highly polluted.
The report said: “The highly polluted weather in Isfahan stealthily brings slow death to the citizens.”
London, 9 Jun – Three Iranian creatives have started three-year jail terms this week. Yousef Emadi, 35, and brothers Mehdi and Hossein Rajabian, 26 and 31, were found guilty in 2015 of “insulting Islamic sanctities”, “spreading propaganda against the system” and “illegal audio-visual activities” in relation to distributing unlicensed music.
London 9 Jun – Iran’s government has released a new promotional video clip aimed at recruiting Afghan nationals to join the war in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The six-minute clip was produced and broadcast by the state television channel Ofogh TV (www.ofoghtv.ir). Other state broadcasters such as the IRGC-affiliated FARS news agency have carried the video.
A notorious prosecutor for the Iranian regime’s Golestan Province in northern Iran has threatened imprisonment and flogging for anyone breaking the fast of Ramadan.
Mostafa Haghi gave a statement to the state-run news agency, Mehr, on 5 June, announcing that brutal punishments will befall anyone breaking the fast during daylight hours.
Roughly 60 percent of industrial and manufacturing units have been closed in Gachsaran, southwestern Iran; putting the majority of their employees out of work.
The city of Gachsaran produces 30 percent of all the oil in Iran; a major contributor to the country’s wealth. It’s the fifth-largest producer of oil and the second-largest producer of gas in Iran.
Seven prisoners in Mashhad, Shiraz and Tehran have been executed in the past three days according to reports from the Iranian regime’s news agency.
On Tuesday 7 June, the Rokna website announced that three men, aged 30, 35 and 40, had been hanged on Monday, in the central prison of Mashhad. The names of the men, who were sentenced by the so-called Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, north-east Iran, and the nature of their crime is unknown.
